With the Liberals forming a majority government, Garneau – who stepped out of the Liberal leadership race in 2014 to make way for Justin Trudeau – is a likely candidate for a cabinet post.

After Garneau's win was announced, he thanked Trudeau for his leadership.

"He showed Canadians the Liberals can govern," Garneau said.

An engineer by training, Garneau was the first Canadian to go into outer space. He led the Canadian Space Agency from 2001 until 2006 before turning his attention to politics. He was first elected for the Liberals under the old riding of Westmount–Ville-Marie in 2008.

The New Democrats went into this race confident they could take the seat this time, putting up a strong candidate in James Hughes, the popular former head of the Old Brewery Mission.

However, Hughes ended up 18,096 votes behind his Liberal adversary,

The defeated NDP candidate remained optimistic.

"We have seen change. The country wanted that. The electors are always right, and we have that new government," Hughes said.

Affluent, educated voters

This time, Garneau was running in a riding with new boundaries, encompassing the City of Westmount, the Montreal borough of ​Notre-Dame-de-Grâce and the City of Montreal West.

(CBC)

​Notre-Dame-de-Grâce–Westmount is an affluent riding populated by highly educated voters, a majority of them anglophones: Nearly half of this riding's electors have a university degree.

Results last election (Westmount - Ville-Marie)

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